Volcanic Activity Report

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WOVOdat

A large !!!and valuable body of data on volcanic seismicity, ground
deformation, gas emission and other unrest has been built over the past
century. Potentially, this could be studied in the same way that
epidemiologists study the occurrence, symptoms, and origins of diseases. Clever
use of these data will significantly improve eruption forecasts and address a
variety of research questions.

These data, though, are so widely scattered that they are largely
inaccessible except through the published literature and direct queries to
those who collected the data. Data files exist only in individual observatories
and with individual researchers; there is no centralized, standardized
database. This fragmented state of affairs utterly fails to take advantage of
the intellectual power of worldwide observatory experience, and of galloping
information technologies. There is no way at present to search through that
collective experience for close matches or for subtle but instructive patterns,
nor to test hypotheses about unrest at a large number of volcanoes.

WOVO proposes to remedy this anachronism by building a modern database of
worldwide volcanic unrest, WOVOdat. WOVOdat will be Web-based and open to all,
and we anticipate wide usage for academic research and teaching as well.